Krusader (screenshot) is a twin-panel file manager for KDE, patterned after old-school managers like Midnight Commander and Norton Commander. It features basically all your file-management needs, plus extensive archive handling, mounted filesystems support, ftp and much much more. So far, the project has been developed by two developers, whose time is now not enough to continue the rapid pace of development. If you're a developer and you're interested in Krusader, we need your help!

Since we're not students anymore, our day jobs prevent us from dedicating the same time into Krusader as we did in the past. We've come to understand that although we have many plans and ideas for Krusader, it will take us a long time to complete them. Development will slow down (as it has for the last 5 months), and new versions will come out more slowly. This is obviously not a desirable situation.

Basically, we need more developers on the project, so that when we have a "down-time", development will not stop. Our TODO list for the upcoming versions is
on-line on the website, and everyone can have a look, and decide if it is interesting enough to join. If you are a developer and want to join, please send an email to the team, and write a few words about who you are, what you'd like to do for the project, and what you've done in the past regarding programming.

krusader is a twin-panel filemanager. it looks like midnight commander with a GUI, or something like windows commander. it's a whole different way of managing files, much different from the explorer-style konqueror (to which i salute also!)

I still don't understand.
Konqueror can do split-panel, if that is what you mean..
Go to Settings->Load View Profile-> Midnight Commander.
And you can change whether you want to see the files as big icons, or lists of files..

What does krusader offer over this?
I think I might just have to play with it to understand.

There's a difference between split-panel and twin-panel. If you split a view in Konqy, you get two (more or less) independent views (and the embedded konsole is yet another independent view). At most, you can lock them together, making them use the same URL. But the twin panels in Krusader/MC/whatever work together, and the command line also works with the active panel.

How do you quickly copy some files from one dir to another in Konqy? In both cases, you view the two directories in two views, but in Krusader, you select the files, hit F5, and hit Enter, it's done. I don't use Konqy for file management, but I doubt you'll achieve the same without mouse fiddling, because a) there's no such keyboard shortcut, b) how would it know to which view to copy?

ad a) I doubt that it would be hard to add an action "Copy to other view" to Konqueror.
ad b) If there is only one other view which accepts files (which would be the case in split-panel mode in Konqueror) then the answer to your question is obvious. And if there are more views then there could be some kind of popup which would allow the user to select the target view.

Neither a) nor b) are convincing arguments for Krusader (except that they are currently not implemented in Konqueror). All functionality which the article mentions, i.e. extensive archive handling, mounted filesystems support, ftp, is also possible with Konqueror. I do not doubt that Krusader has some features that Konqueror doesn't have (yet). But I don't think that it makes much sense to continue this unnecessary duplication of code. It would be much wiser to add a Mignight Commander mode (not just a profile) to Konqueror than to keep developing Krusader as standalone application (it could still be made available as standalone application even if it's made a KPart). Just have a look at the following mostly high-priority items from the TODO list:
- embedded tree view
- Tabbed browsing
- use KDE's date format
- integration with KGET (dl. manager)
- a new embedded SMB browser
- New Bookmarks Manager (multiple wishes, e.g. profiles)
- embedded quick view/thumbnail viewer

All of this is already implemented more or less in Konqueror. In my opinion it would be a waste of precious developer man power (it's not as if we would have too much developers) to duplicate all these features in Krusader just because the handling of Krusader and Konqueror is slightly different.

first, there is no code duplication. when krusader got started (almost 3 years ago), we had to implement things that were not available in KDE. as time went by, some things got implemented in kdelibs (and you wouldn't call that duplication, would you?). once we see that something we did, is implemented in the libs, we drop our code (unless there is a really good reason), and use kde's. this allows us to use a maintained code, avoid duplication and inherit every bug-fix that kde developers do.

second, regarding the todo list:
- integration with KGET (dl. manager): not a high priority, but among the LOWEST
- embedded tree view: we plan to use kde's as-is, and again, not a high priority
- use KDE's date format: simply a bug-fix
- a new embedded SMB browser: i'm using kde at work, on a big windows-centric
lan. maybe it's just me, but i've yet to see a samba browser that works.
note that i know about komba, and already had talks with its author.
- New Bookmarks Manager: again, integrate kde's which is much better
- embedded quick view/thumbnail viewer: relates to a gui redesign issue that i
won't get into.
- Tabbed browsing: not the same as konqueror's. twin-panel tabbed browsing
relates to having multiple view on the left side, and multiple on the right,
while still keeping the left ones and the right ones separated. completely
different.

last, notice that a twin-panel filemanager IS a different conecpt. if we'll take
a windows equivalent, you might say that using windows commander is the same as
opening to instances of explorer, and placing them side by side. you could drag
files between them, delete files etc. obviously, this is not the case.

I think the problem here are not the features. Just some people (Like myself) are used to the good old norton commander for DOS. I just do not like the explorer type file managers. In the windows world I use the Total Commander (former windows commander, his Billness asked them to change the name, after several years). When I use KDE, I use Krusader.

My point is, it's irrelevant that other file manager do the same, we just like Krusader more than others. Unfortunately, I'm a C++ 'disabled' person (ASM and some C) so I cannot help.

> a new embedded SMB browser: i'm using kde at work, on a big windows-centric
> lan. maybe it's just me, but i've yet to see a samba browser that works.
> note that i know about komba, and already had talks with its author.

Ever try lan://?

It uses lisa, and lets you browse numerous useful services on a lan, like smb, ftp, http and fish.

just tried it now, and the most i get from it, is a list
of IPs on my network. i click one, select SMB and get nothing.
i suspect it has something to do with workgroup, since when i mount
my share using smbmount, i have to specify my workgroup.
anyway, listing IPs is not what i meant when i said smb browser.

In Konqueror, you select the files, hit F7, hit Enter, and it's done (F8 is move, F10 mkdir -- come on, you could have looked in to the edit menu ;-) . There is also support for ctrl-(+), ctrl-(-) for wild card selection.

As for the target pane: it asks for a confirmation of the directory when you do it, and with 2 views the destination is not ambiguous, is it?

copying files in konqy: select the files, press F7 for copy, F8 for move
if there are exactly two views open, the selected files will be copied/moved to the other view, if there is only one or more than two views open, a dialog will appear were you can select the destination.
F10 is for mkdir

Speaking of which, as soon as I load a profile, it kills all my current tabs.
Couldn't the profile perhaps be made an additional tab?
Its not as if the new profile cannot work with tabs: Once in the new profile u can create tabs again.

I agree 100%. First of all: it is the developers' decision. If they want to go their way I fully respect it. But I still think it would be nice if they decided to work on the file management aspect of Konqui (which already is excellent). A merger would be a first step :-)

Not only that, but krusader actually predates Konqueror. I've always loved krusader... I haven't used it in a while, but it'd be a shame for it not to have more developers. It fills a certain niche (light file manager) that Konqueror can't fill, imho.

Actually konqy can do almost anything, I don't see a way how something could be "merged". All what would have to be done for konqy would be maybe some more UI tweaks, konqy *can* do everything.
-> open two views (left/right), change between them using CTRL+Tab, press CTRL+E to execute a shell command in the current view, press F7/F8 tp copy move files, F10 for mkdir, press Shift+Delete to delete files, press enter to view it.
Press CTRL+"+" to select files, CTRL+"-" to deselect files, CTRL+"*" to toggle the selection of all files. Press F2 to rename a file.

Asking for help is an excellent iniciative.
I can't think of a best project for a student than developing free software. It is a challenge (most of open source projects have really high standards of quality) and meaningfull to society.
And even better when you have an open invitation.

Although I prefer konqueror I must say that krusader is a wonderful program with a very intuitive interface. I find that new users (new as in new to computers, not new as in "just came from windows) have a much easier time understanding how Krusader works. Its a great project that I do not want to see disappear.

Hey, this is a very nice filemanager and I would hate for it to disappear.
I just installed it and tested it and I love it. Konqui is much to heavy for me as a filemanager. Anyway, thanks to the developers. I'm a student myself, with no little time to spare (unfortunately), and I realize you guys must have put a lot of work in this project.
I hope that you will find a couple of extra developers.

On windows I used Servant Salamander all the time, which is a Norton-clone. The thing I love about this, is that you can do everything with the keyboard. While I like Konqueror as a browser, I never use it for file management as it get's too much in the way (same with Explorer).

Your app is a good one. Very good! It's super light compared to the konqueror.

Hey, why don't you start selling your app? Then you will find a "payed" time for it and even more you can make a business!

Just start selling the newer version, and when there is released a more recent the previous one becames free.

For example if you are now at 1.11 let start charging for 1.20,
when you make 1.21, 1.22 etc they will be chargable too, and after making 1.30 - 1.20 becames free

You know nothing is free and the biggest fans would pay for the most recent version! And yes NOTHING is free, people should learn to pay for every single line written! You've spent a hundreds of hours for developing the app and noone from the "community" will pay your time.

Btw you also can start at later point to increase the delta between the free and payed version and someday only 1.8, having 3.0 in the same time for money! Or even just make the app entirely commercial.

Just be careful because we all know what happened to the old Quanta team that started selling it, but in the same time the "free geeks" continued the production of the free Quanta.

May be you have to think about changing the license to non RMS-GPL copyleft one, so making sure that you will protect your OWN intelectual property from the FORKERS.

Pay the developers to continue your much liked apps, and tell your friends to do the same. There's no reason why to close a source just for being able to sell an application. Also developers keep their own intelectual property even with GPL while by going commercial you are exactly provocing the forking behavior you naively think to be able to avoid.

Krusader is a fine product. The ecology of open source suggests that those bits of software that are useful to a large audience of users and developers survive. I'm guessing that Krusader has a small audience and will eventually whither away. It's a real shame for the guys that have poured their personal time and effort into this product and not have it succeed. It would appear that Konqueror has been a better match to the needs of the largest audience (for now).

trying to be objective here... krusader does not appeal to the konqueror-using audience. same as windows commander doesn't work for explorer-using guys. same as mc and nautilus. it's simply a different program for different people. i do think, however, that krusader does have an audience and seems to have a dedicated user base. i'd like to think that as long as there are people who needs an alternative over the explorer-like file manager, krusader will be there for them ;-)

btw: if you'd look outside KDE, you'll see a lot more programs which manage files differently than konqueror.

No, not at all. Sometimes useful programs die too. Like KIllustrator which was pretty damn good in the KDE1 days.

It is not fair to compare Konqueror to Krusader because Krusader does not get as big a distribution as Konqueror does. KDE really needs to find a way to promote these "outside" apps more to distribution vendors, especially good ones like Krusader.

well, in my old mandrake days, i noticed that krusader came on mandrake cds (although on the last one ;-). i think it's included with debian also, and i know about suse and redhat builds. obviously, gentoo (which i'm using today) has an ebuild. problem is, and not only with krusader, that a lot of good kde applications get no attention (or almost no attention) - unless someone is good enough to post something on the dot on their behalf. the problem, as i see it, is that users have a hard time finding out about kde programs that don't come in a one of the kde packages. as i remember, a lot of gnome people say that kde is nice, but gnome has more applications. regardless if this claim is truth or not, it wouldn't be such a bad idea to let the people know that kde has some apps to offer.

I have a SuSE 8.2 installation with an Intel 2.56Ghz chip and a gig of memory, and my KDE installation is SLOW. For example, KEdit takes over 30 seconds to load and any of the SuSE config applets takes 1-3 minutes to load and display. What are some of the reasons for this?

I think you have a screwed up /etc/hosts... KDE itself takes about six seconds to load here on my p4 2.4ghz. Most apps, like kedit, popup within a second or two.. exceptions include Mozilla, and OpenOffice. I'm using gentoo with prelink, GCC 3.3, linux 2.5.70-mm1, nptl.

Actually IT IS SLOW and it is not comparable to xp in speed. I'm a linux enthusiast but when's something is just not right it isn't and kde (Any version btw) is just slow.
I think it's got to do with the opengl which is not part of kde. Rather kde uses some other software graphics accelerator I think it's xfgl or something named like that.
However, anyone knows how to fix this?

Before this, I used emelfm (http://emelfm.sourceforge.net/) for file management. Emelfm does some things better than Krusader, but Krusader also does some things that Emelfm doesn't do or doesn't do as well. In addition, although Emelfm a nice, clean program, but I like having a small, working Qt/KDE equivalent that fits in with my KDE desktop a little better. (Konqueror doesn't seem to be very stable on my computer, it's bigger than I want for file management, and I can never remember how to get the two panel mode to work correctly.)

All in all, I think I like what I've seen so far of Krusader. Keep up the good work! (or find the help needed to do so) :)

I've just downloaded Krusader and am getting acquainted with it. It looks like Krusader lets you mark groups of files (maybe even save and load lists of marked files). So how long until we see a tagging facility in Konqueror's file manager?
It might be more general, like the 'emblem' feature in Nautilus, so that you could tag a file into several groups at once.

I organize my FAQs, school files, and drawings and it would be MUCH easier to move things around if they're tagged -- otherwise, if I slip up on the mouse and make a stray click, I lose my whole selected list.